Album of the Week | Bonny Doon: Let There Be Music

“When you’re living in the city / You know I don’t need to explain / There’s a whole lot of lovin’ / There’s a whole lot of pain,” Bill Lennox sings at the opening of Let There Be Music, Bonny Doon’s third—and roaringly jaunty—full-length album. The Detroit folk-rock trio—Lennox, Jake Kmiecik and Bobby Colombo—initially took to the studio to make Let There Be Music way back in 2020, right around when the pandemic hit. But, with COVID unfurling, members receiving life-changing diagnoses of Lyme and Chrohn’s disease and the whole crew taking a stint as Waxahatchee’s (Katie Crutchfield) backing band on her Saint Cloud tour, the album just wasn’t coming together as the immediate successor to 2018’s Longwave.

But, Let There Be Music has made it to us after all. And, at a buoyant 10 tracks, Bonny Doon are at the height of their powers—making Laurel Canyon rock ‘n’ roll with a contemporary spring in its step. The album doesn’t opt to weigh the repercussions of modern day plights so much as it aims to configure catharsis after a period of immense change. In the wake of medical, emotional and social trauma, Bonny Doon have elected to fashion a record that speaks to the joyous gloam of hope awaiting them on the other side of misery. Through intrepid togetherness, Lennon, Kmiecik and Colombo inject reliance and trust into Let There Be Music. As if the only place to turn after darkness was into each other’s light, there’s a sense of communion that is irreplicable and moving and alive here that sugars every story and arrangement.

Album opener “San Francisco” is, possibly, one of the best side-one/track-ones of 2023 so far. Lennox’s voice feels wholly inspired by the vocal aesthetics of 21st century indie rock, as he embraces a monotone guise and lament: “Life is but a flower / And time is but a dream / Love is but a river / Passing through everything / “Everybody’s waitin’ / Everybody’s got a dream / Everybody’s lookin’ for what they’ve never seen,” he sings. The saloon-style organ from Colombo, the backing chorus of Crutchfield, Yawns frontman John Andrews and Caitlin and Bonnie Drinkard and a snaking, shimmering lead guitar fold into a perfect four-minute journey.

“Naturally” dares to embrace the gifts that come by not forcing a relationship to go in any specific direction, as the trio surrenders to a sonic architecture once beset by Yo La Tengo decades ago. Lennox hops on the mic again and sings French atop a snaring drum machine and a sweeping folk strum dueting with a beautiful, electric, indie pop solo. “There’s a lot to talk about,” he sings, “but we’ll let it happen naturally.” On “Crooked Creek,” Lennox adopts a Silver Jews, David Berman-style grandeur, as he sings about personifying grief through auspicious, psychedelic language: “I took a ride on a raindrop and what do ya know / I came across sadness sitting alone / I said, ‘What’s the matter sadness, why are you so sad?’ / Sadness replied, ‘That’s just how I am’ / And there was laughter after the carousel,” he sings.

The kookiness of “Crooked Creek” deserves to be lauded for how much it makes sense in the circumstance of Let There Be Music altogether, as the trio shade their grief with unrelenting optimisim—leading to the record’s thesis statement: “If you’re stepping in shit, you’re probably on the path.” On “Fine Afternoon,” a song that is talismanic of the Let There Be Music mantra, Bonny Doon reflect on the West Coast and its history of good vibes in a post-Haight-Ashbury landscape. “They gave amnesty for hippies long ago,” Colombo sings, “but is there mercy here still?” It’s as if they are searching for some promised land and have migrated to the Pacific Ocean in hopes of finding it (though Columbo did live in Northern California briefly).

Let There Be Music oozes with touchstones of that very concept, as it flaunts Easy Rider-era Americana rife with garage rock undertones and pop textures. There’s a little bit of Grateful Dead in there; a tinge of Pavement. The world of Bonny Doon is a grand, expansive one that culls from an era that is bygone to the band’s members. But, Let There Be Music makes good on their hard-earned zen. The sunshine was not a given, and this album doesn’t suggest otherwise. The daydreams of warmer weather and dusks worth chasing isn’t one born out of Midwestern imagination, but out of a romantic, symbiotic belief that a new pastoral can lead to personal euphoria.

A big highlight of Let There Be Music is “On My Mind,” which taps into a Twin Peaks-style sonic layout. Colombo sings lead and delivers a generous ode to the folks who exit our lives and how we might begin to grieve their absence. “Got a lot of friends to spend the days with / And I’ve had a few who got away / Got a lot of time to think about them / And all the things we could say,” Colombo croons, preserving their existence in a psychic space suspended high above. His slow drawl enhances the track’s slick, meandering blues riffs. It’s one of those alt-country slices that will stick with you.

The title track is a piano-driven, sing-along jingle with a faint electric guitar riff and chamberlin synth that each kiss the energy of Lennox and Crutchfield’s backing vocals sweetly. “Let There Be Music” admonishes negativity and dares to conjure a future where only sample sizes of agony find a crack to pour in through. “And let there be sadness / But only sometimes / And let there be music to fill you up inside,” Colombo chants.

There’s a certain affection afloat across Let There Be Music, and how could there not be? After their world turned towards harshness, Bonny Doon’s intuition to embrace an aperture of spirituality through songwriting feels earnest and devotional. Though their last couple of years have been spent on the road, they were never merely a backing band. Colombo, Lennox and Kmiecik have something within their talents that is as endearing as it is indefinable, and this album solidifies just how adroitly they can shred.

“No matter how you use the stage / No matter how you ravage and rage / No matter comfort, no matter pain / You can’t stay the same,” Lennox sings midway through the album. On Let There Be Music, Bonny Doon articulate what joys fall upon us once we’ve seen through the aches of transition. That is the crowning achievement of this record, as it’s much tougher to write into happiness than it is to write out of sorrow. But, what a gift it is to know that Bonny Doon have found a niche in the heart of joyous, blissful faith.

Matt Mitchell is Paste‘s assistant music editor. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, but you can find him online @yogurttowne.